The Waxing Moon
by LingeringLuminosity
Summary: If Seth had known about the yellow sickness, he wouldn't have gone into those woods, he wouldn't have trusted a boy who smelt like decay and he would have run. All he can do is pray that Edward, Leah and Jacob find him before The Yellow ones do. post BD
1. Chapter 1

**Characters belong to Stephenie Meyer. Later chapters may contain slash.**

Waxing Moon

When he has stopped running, he raises a sandy coloured snout up to the swollen moon, taking in the crisp scent of winter air. The forest smells cleanest in December, the atmosphere is at its thinnest and he can clearly make out the tang of melting snow, and the sad decay of falling leaves. Behind him drifts the scent of his companions, who are following far behind him at a leisurely pace.

And then his nose catches something that he doesn't recognise, like a handful of thick black smog, but with a nasty yellowish tint to it. It's a sickness almost, the smell oozes and bubbles like pus.

_Do you smell that?_He asks nervously as the two other wolves stop besides him in the clearing. They both raise their heads skywards and sniff sharply.

Leah winces and replies, _Yeah…what is it?_

_I don't know- something new. It's familiar but... different. _He takes a few steps further, following the nauseating smell, a large paw slopping into a pile of dirty slush. It's the height of winter and yet the snow is thawing in clearing as though it were spring.

_Maybe we shouldn't __go this way, _says the rust coloured Jacob and Seth stops in his tracks.

_I don't __like this at all, _Leah adds, _Seth stay close_.

But before Seth can do anything Leah begins to snarl, her grey back stiffened and arched, baring her sharp, yellowing teeth, salvia glistening in the pale moonlight. Before he can turn to see what has startled his sister, Seth feels something rip into his haunches. A white hot pain rips through his muscles as the sickening yellow smell overwhelms him.

_All dead. Pain…hurts, hungry…tired. _What he hears isn't Leah or Jacob, Seth knows that for certain.

Through watery eyes, he can just about see Leah leaping forwards and whatever has a struggling Seth clamped tight begins shaking him like a rag doll. He howls in pain while his front paws move and sway uselessly. Turning around, he can just about see the snout that is buried into his flesh, its own dirty white fur soaked with his own blood. However, despite the strong grip it has in Seth, he can almost sense the creature's blinding pain- it's struggling to stand up and its breathing is jagged.

And then he is flying through the air, his fur feels damp with melting snow and something warmer and thicker. He hits a tree branch with force and yelps as his back muscles begin to ache, the dull pain of impact contrasting the sharp pain in his back legs.

He can just about make out the dark shapes of Jacob and Leah tearing at the white wolf-life creature, though it is much larger than both Leah and Jacob in wolf form and something about the way it stands and moves looks hideously twisted. It's white flank is also teeming with sores and yellowing wounds. Which, to Seth, are slowly turning to black.

* * *

"_Seth_,"

Everything aches, his head, his back, his very human arms and legs feel like they could snap off if he even attempts to bend them. In front of him he can just about see Leah, her face very close to his, her long black hair trickling against his bare skin.

"Seth, wake up or so help me I'm spitting right in your ear!"

"Alright, alright," he mumbles, "I'm up, I'm _ugarrarrarrgh_!" A wave of pain hits him and his back legs feel like they have been plunged into an oven. Gripping a tree, he tries to sit up, but finds he can't. What's left of the snow is awash with his blood and when he looks down at his legs he feels sick.

"Why haven't you healed?" demands Leah, pointing to Seth's wounds. It looks as though he's been bitten by a shark; the skin of his right thigh has been ripped clean off and the flesh beneath is shades of red and pink and- to Seth's horror, white. The left is a little better, though he can still make out (and feel) a set of sharp puncture marks like fangs trailing up to his hip bone. "Why hasn't he healed?" she says baring her teeth at Jacob.

Jacob - who's also sporting a mysterious set of red and raw scratch marks along the bridge of his nose and down to his cheeks, frowns and stares at Seth's legs, who feels an almost boiling sensation in his face when he realises that he's butt-naked in the snow. And in a serious amount of pain, he tries to put this into a coherent sentence but finds that he's gasping for air.

"_Ugarrarrarrgh_!"he repeats and Leah nods like she understands.

"That leg wants stitching up if it isn't going to heal by itself, we need to get him to a hospital. _Now_."

"But how do we explain what happened?"

"Ugarrarragh!"

"Yes thank you for your input there, Seth," says Leah flatly, "but shut up and save your energy, okay?" she turned to Jacob, an impatient hand on her hip. "Dr. Cullen won't ask too many questions, at least not many he doesn't already know the answer to."

Jacob nods and crouches down besides Seth, a bead of blood dripping down what would have been his snout. They haven't looked this worse for wear in a long, long time and Seth wonders why none of them have been able to repair themselves.

"Okay Seth, buddy…can you walk?"

"Don't be a moron, look at him- you'll have to carry him, at least to a road or something."

Jacob must have pulled a face because Leah says, very firmly, "_You're carrying him_!"

"Yeah, I know, of course…but can we at least put some underwear on him?"

Seth has to admit that it isn't the worst idea in the world, but he can feel Leah's withering look and it isn't long before Jacob's arms around him, pulling him up. He's in almost too much pain to be humiliated by this- a_lmost_ being the key word in the situation.

Jacob tries his hardest to be gentle, but he keeps shifting Seth's long gangly limbs to get a better grip on a part of him that isn't covered in blood or totally inappropriate no matter how close a friendship they have and Seth has to grip onto his shoulders to block out the pain. Besides him, Leah is frantically dialling her mobile- which was tucked into the pocket of her jeans during transformations in a typical female fashion, because apparently even in wolf form, Leah cannot bear to be parted from it. He'd almost be grateful for it, if she wasn't mumbling about how hard it was to get signal in a forest.

"Try again at the road," says Jacob and Leah stabs at her phone again before giving a half pained sigh- half frustrated grunt, Seth notices that her arm is bleeding too, that whatever took a chunk out of him had a pretty good gnaw on his sister as well. "Hey, _hey_, Seth's gonna be fine, Leah."

"Oh I know he is," she says, pinching Seth's ear with her good arm a little harder than was probably appropriate, given the current situation. "He'll be fine if he knows what's good for him."

But she shakes her phone desperately once more for effect and adds sourly, "I hope we killed that thing back there."

"We certainly hurt it a lot, whatever the hell it was…what the hell _do_ you think it was?"

"I don't know…I wanna say wolf, but it didn't look or smell much like any wolf I've ever seen. Not any of our kind at least. Oh _shh_ I'm through. _Mom_, mom," she presses her finger in her ear and prepares herself, "now don't freak out, okay? No, I'd never do that- no that's- _mom_- that happened one time stop bringing it up. It's not me, it's Seth-" she holds the phone away from her ear and winces again, "it's not that bad, just a small- barely a scratch really- savage animal attack."

* * *

"And I've had to give him about ninety stitches- which should be enough to tide him over."

"_Ninety_?" says Sue Clearwater faintly, her face is pale and she grips Seth's hand tightly. If he'd been feeling less swimmy from getting his stitches done he would have yanked it away because not only had Carlisle managed to wrangle Seth a private room, he'd also allowed Seth his own entourage and now Leah, Jacob, his mom, Billy Black, Quil and Embry have piled into the pastel pink hospital room. And he wants to laugh at how uncomfortable they all look, like dogs walking on their hind legs- werewolves don't do hospitals, what with the whole self-healing thing and all, Jacob and Leah have opted out of Carlisle even looking at their injuries- and Seth knows Leah, since their dad died, has an intense dislike for 'all the poking and prodding that happens at hospital."

"So you have no idea why we can't heal ourselves?" asks Seth worriedly, lying on his stomach because the majority of his wounds are at the back of his legs, he feels broken and embarrassed and is pretty keen to kick-start the whole healing process to avoid further humiliation.

Though the question is really aimed at Billy Black, Carlisle shakes his head regretfully, "Not that I can deduce, I'm afraid; understandably, I don't know an awful lot about werewolf physiology."

"Perhaps you are," suggests Leah. "It's just slower because your legs are so bad."

"It's a possibility," says Billy with a shrug. "Wound healing times can often vary." And with that Leah grabs Seth's IV blood bag, pulling it out of his skin. He howls as it rips out and Sue Clearwater smacks her daughter round the head.

"What the hell did you do that for?!" say Seth and Sue angrily together.

Leah just rolls her eyes and points, "Look." The skin on Seth's arm is perfectly intact, as though nothing had punctured it in the first place. "So he's not broken. Trust me, we'll all be healed by the end of the afternoon."

"Good point, poorly made, Leah," sniffs Sue brushing Seth down with motherly affection before cradling his head, sniffing back what Seth hopes aren't tears. Embry and Quil, look up from decimating the box of candy that they'd apparently bought him at the gift shop and snigger so Seth shoots Billy a pleading look, which he mercifully picks up on.

"Come on boys," he says wheeling out of the door, "it's getting pretty cramped in here."

Jumping a little to avoid having their toes run over by Billy Black in his wheelchair, they mutter 'later' and 'get better', patting Seth on the back as Carlisle says he has to see to some other patients, leaving the half eaten tray of candy, his mom and his sister.

"Oh Seth, honey," says Sue with a deep sigh, "I never thought I'd have to be in hospital again, not with you two at least. And then after your father…"she trails of wordlessly, gripping her son's head tighter. Brushing down her hair, which is thick and black like Leah's, only cut shorter and streaked with a lot more grey, she composes herself a little before continuing, "If I'd have known you kids were in danger I'd never let you go off at night like that."

"Mom," says Seth exasperatedly, "we're wolves…you know that we're not usually in danger, and if we are then we just heal."

"That worked out really well for you didn't it, Seth?" sniffs Sue pointing to her son's legs. "And what if that hadn't been your legs? Hey, what if it was your throat you couldn't heal…and what if Leah hadn't been there to help you _albeit a little too late_," she glances at Leah darkly. "You're not going back in those woods, you hear me? And maybe you don't transform for a little while as well, I've always thought you were far too young for this, Seth. Gives yourself a little more time to grow up, at least wait until you're Leah's age to do it again."

"_Mom!_"

"Is he okay?" says a voice from the doorway, with difficulty Seth turns his body round to see Edward Cullen in the doorway, eyes burning intensely, "why's he here? I thought he could heal? Who attacked him? Is he okay?"

"Hey there, Ed," says Seth with a grin. His head feels a little more out of sorts now, as though his body is on dry land whilst his brain bobs about in its own little ocean, "wanna see my battle wounds?"

Sue gives Edward a suspicious look; despite the newer generation's (Seth and Jacob in particular) friendship with the Cullen vampires Sue is from a time when all vampires were to be treated with a level of disgust by the Quileutes and old habits do, unfortunately die hard. But she can't blame what happened on Edward, and because Seth is happy to see him, all she can do is stand up abruptly and dismiss herself from the room for a few minutes, "I'm going to go talk to one of the nurses," she says stiffly, "see if I can't bust out of here."

"So how is he?" repeated Edward again, very insistently to Leah.

Seth just giggled to himself, "Bust you out of here! Like I'm in prison…my Mommy's funny."

"Uh…he's fine…that'd be the pain meds kicking in there," says Leah with a shrug as Seth continues to giggle, "he got on the wrong side of a…well, we don't know quite what exactly. Look at the bitemarks for yourself."

As she pulls up Seth's thin coverlet and papery hospital gown, Edward gives a sharp intake of breath. When he see's Seth's hip and thighs which have been stitched up and his right thigh has been bandaged, his fingers hover over the wound, inches away from touching them, brushing over Seth's inflamed skin.

"What did this?" growled Edward.

"Didn't you hear me?" snaps Leah, rolling her eyes at him. "We don't know. A large wolf or a cougar probably, we were more worried about looking after Seth when it took a massive chunk out of his ass than we were about its species."

"It wasn't actually my _ass_," mumbles Seth, but he's too heavily medicated to be embarrassed.

Edward's still frowning, "A cougar did _that_?"

"I don't know," says Leah exasperatedly, "how many more times?"

He nods, "I'm going to find Carlisle, if you'll excuse me."

"Uh…bye then, Ed," says Seth, "Thanks for stopping by."

"I'll come back, shortly," he mumbles and Leah is looking daggers at him.

"Unbelievable!" she says to the back of his swiftly retreating head, "I'll bet you any money that Dracula's going to check with Carlisle, because none of us can understand who hurt you. He thinks we're all idiots I can tell." She tries to fold her arm but winces as her wound stings anew.

"Your arm looks pretty bad."

"I'll live," says Leah grimly, leaning back on the chair. "Which is more than I can say for our Mom, I'm gonna get it when I get home, I can tell 'why didn't you look out for him?' or 'how could you have taken him to such a dangerous place?' Spare me."

"You don't think that she'd seriously ban me from going out with you guys again?"

"Depends, you know what Mom's like…but then again, you also know what Mom's been like since Dad died. I don't really know, Seth."

"He'd have convinced her to let me go out again _easily_," says Seth sadly, Sue was stubborn in the same way that Leah was- but with the right smile and the right joke, Dad would usually be able to make her change her mind. He paused and looked at the pillow carefully, it was cool and white- especially against his own raised body temperature, almost as though it were made of snow. "Leah…"

"What, gimp features?"

"That thing, in the woods…what we smelt…is it worrying you?"

"You should have seen it's eyes," says Leah, scratching her nose pensively, "all red and crusted over. I'm almost sure it was a wolf, the more I think about it- and not a true wolf either, but that smell, and the way it moved- as though it were in pain...I think it was dying before Jake and I did anything to it."

"Not a true wolf?" asks Seth worriedly, "You mean someone from LaPush attacked me?"

Leah shakes her head violently, "We haven't got any white wolves. But, I've been talking to Jacob while you were getting stitched up and we both think we need to talk to Billy."

"Why?"

"There's someone else out there who can do what we do, Seth," says Leah grimly. "And whoever he or she is, I think she must be infected with something that we don't want catching."

**Reviews will be very much appreciated and returned :)**


	2. Chapter 2

"You look terrible," says Seth looking up at his sister. It's been three days since he was discharged from the hospital and contrary to Leah's predictions, Seth still hasn't healed completely yet. In fact, if anything, he's healing slower than he would have done if he were human.

Leah is damp through, her hair is crinkled with water and her eye makeup has run down her face in two black streams. Strung over her shoulder, her arm is encased in a crudely made sling which has become see-through with the rain water.

She glances over at her mother who waves a towel in her face and tells her not to drip on the carpet. "I mean, for God's sake Leah, what were you doing to get so wet? You'll make yourself sick and I _am_ not looking after both of you."

"I walked back from work in the rain," Leah says feebly. She's started a job- off the reservation, which is unusual especially for the wolves- as a lab technician for the scientists studying in the National Park.

"But you hated lab at school," Sue had said when Leah first announced her new job.

"No I didn't," said Leah shortly, "but it wasn't as though I had much choice was it? It's not like I've been to _college_." Leah understood, of course, that her place was on the reservation with the other wolves, but it didn't make her any less bitter about the fact that she wasn't going to college, and most likely wouldn't leave the reservation anytime soon/

"No you didn't," calls Sue from the kitchen, heating up soup for her son who is nestled comfortably on the couch and has been all day watching Judd Apatow movies. Being mauled by scary creatures in a forest certainly has its upsides. "I just heard your car pull into the drive. If you're going to lie, honey, you need to try harder than that." She leans in the doorframe and watches Leah, arms folded with a scowl almost identical to her daughter's. "I'm waiting."

Leah throws her arms up in the air and lets out a frustrated groan, "Whatever." Before stomping up to her room mumbling about needing to move out and not being a child anymore or something along those lines.

"Oh Sethee," Sue's face softens when she looks at her son, leaning down to ruffle his hair, "Let me see your bandages."

"No, Mom," Seth wriggles away from her grip, hand protectively cupped over the back of his legs. "Mom, Mom, no. _No_."

He loves his Mom but Freud would have a field day if he let her that close to his bare ass.

*

"She calmed down yet?" says Leah a little later, emerging from her room, looking at their Mom who's reading the paper at the kitchen table. Deciding it's safe, Leah promptly sits herself heavily onto Seth's legs, who hisses in pain. "Guess what I heard at work today frog face."

"The secrets to being a pleasant human being?" says Seth, smiling sweetly.

"You should be so lucky. I heard that they were looking into some disturbances in park…something's been killing the elk...like, a _lot _of the elk."

"So what? Edward and his lot all hunt in the park," dismisses Seth.

"Not like this they don't," says Leah with an almost delighted gleam in her eye, "the meat was sucked right off the bones of five of them, but the rest ,around twenty of them, had been killed just for the hell of it. No blood or meat or nothing taken."

Seth knows where Leah is taking this of course, "Let it go, sis," he says with a sigh.

"No way," she says drawing herself up, "Something is on _my_ land, hurting _my _kid brother. I'm not stopping 'til I've killed it myself. Call it wolfish instincts."

Seth calls it just Leah being Leah. Even before the Sam/ Emily incident she's been fiercely protective over things that she views as hers, and now that feeling has only been exacerbated.

"And that's why you were out in the rain, I suppose? Walking up and down the park looking for…I don't even know what you're supposed to be looking for, do you?"

"I'll know when I find it."

"The only thing you need to find is a life and a new boyfriend," Seth mutters and Leah makes sure to poke him where it hurts, _inside_ his wound. It's only a light poke, but it hurts a lot more than it should do and Seth has to clutch at his side carefully as nausea bubbles inside of him.

"Seth, what's wrong?"

He shakes his head, teeth still gritted together though the wave of pain is brief. Leah frowns at him in a very Sue like way but he forces a smile.

"You hurt _me_ and then you ask what's wrong…schizo much Leah?" she sticks his tongue out which Seth reciprocates, but inside he feels something stirring, hitting clumsily against the walls of his stomach like a desperate, dying animal, a smell still caught in his nostrils and a buzzing kind of feeling around his head- that couldn't be normal could it?

*

Bella calls later, which she's been doing everyday to check up on him. He's learning more and more interesting ways to dress up 'I'm fine thanks'

"How's the patient doing?" she asks, predictably. Leah rolls her eyes from behind a magazine; she's never liked Bella…and Seth has a sneaky suspicion that she's come to think of Jacob as _hers_ now too.

"Really good thanks, Bells- a week of no school and I get to eat all the chicken soup and ice cream I want."

"You're not too lonely in the house are you?" Bella continues, clucking over him in a motherly way, Seth doesn't care what Leah thinks- he likes Bella; she's one of the few girls he actually _understands_, because she talks like a human being without giggling. Seth used to think he had a crush on her a few years back but he's recently realised that it was just because Jacob did and it was easier to go along with Jacob and pretend that he liked girls more than he actually did.

"Nessie and me could bake you something and bring it round if you like?"

"Trust me," laughs Seth, "I'm gonna be fat as a house by the end of this if my Mom has her way. I'd love the company, though." He wants to add, _but_ _maybe not Renesmee, _he can't help it if she creeps him the hell out with her odd, old face, but young sparkling eyes- she really is the complete opposite of her father who's eyes seem far too old for his smooth face and practically boy-like jaw. But he has to admit that excluding Bella's daughter is probably the height of rudeness.

"Listen, Seth," says Bella suddenly in a low voice, her overtly cheery expression vanished into a hurried whisper- Seth gets the impression that she's finally alone, "We're all worried about what attacked you. Alice has been jittery for months and she's not been talking to Edward. He has no idea why, I have no idea why and she won't tell us- but I cant help feeling like this is all connected somehow."

He sighs, "I've said this to Leah…can everyone just drop it it's really not that big a-"

"Well tomorrow then," says Bella loudly- she was alone and now she isn't, is the only reason Seth can imagine for this sudden turn in her tone. "We'll talk about it tomorrow. Bye Seth."

"I really would quite like to drop it actually," he says, but it's no good, the beeping on the end of his cell phone lets him know that yet another person is ignoring him 'for his own good' whatever the hell that meant.

*

That night, he dreams in yellow. A forest awash with it, like dripping watercolours down a canvas, his breathing slow and thick pushed out of his throat and into an atmosphere dense with leaves and an ugly smell.

The ill eyes of the white wolf who attacked him stare deeply into his as they touch snouts, hot, heavy breath blows through his fur and together they breath deeply, rasping desperately. Seth's chest feels heavy, he's reminded of his father's last moments, fear in his eye as he clutches at his heart, Sue screaming and Leah hunched over in a corner, her eyes dim with shock.

The white wolf reaches forwards and licks Seth's muzzle, blood oozes from between his teeth but his tongue feels tender, soothing. A fission of electricity passes through the eyes of the two wolves and Seth opens his jaw, desperate to feel the coarse white hairs and relieve the discomfort lingering behind the eyes of the other wolf,

But before he can, something falls out of his mouth.

It slips onto the ground which is stained yellow, though it reeks of poisons and blood. Pale and fleshy, it hits dead leaves with a wet sound and unfocusing yellow eyes turn upwards to face Seth. Lying on the ground is a face, ripped from it's body and torn to shreds by Seth's own jaws. He recognises it; the eyes which are too old for a face which is too young. If he didn't know any better he'd say that the white wolf was laughing at him.

His eyes sting as a cloud of jaundiced smog coats his lungs. When he wakes up he's choking on his own vomit, damp with cold sweat as he has just enough time to lean over his bed and throw his guts up onto the floor. Phlegm and chicken soup and bile and blood soaks into the carpet as he shakes in bed, desperate for his Mom and a cooling hand soothed over his forehead but too weak to call for her.

He has to admit though, and a burning sensation returns to his thighs to highlight this point, that perhaps Leah and Bella are right to be worried.

All he can see when he finally shuts his eyes again is the enormous shape of the white wolf.


End file.
